Staffers for the Trump transition team have been meeting with career staff at the White House ahead of Jan 20’s presidential inauguration to outline their plans for shrinking the federal bureaucracy. The changes they propose are dramatic.

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A recent briefing by senior intelligence officials on surveillance programs failed to attract even half of the Senate, showing the lack of enthusiasm in Congress for learning about classified security programs.

American Majority Action, a rising force among the conservative grass roots, has made a nearly $1 million investment in technology to put Tea Party activists on even footing with President Obama’s election campaign.

Plans to cut deeply into Congress’s investigative arm have sparked a protest from a bipartisan group of senators who say it would hurt the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) ability to track government waste and abuse.

After an acrimonious, months-long debate over raising the national debt limit, a battle many Democrats think the Republicans won, Senate Democratic leaders are becoming increasingly frustrated over how the media reports on the bold tactics of Tea Party Republicans. This frustration boiled over during a press conference on the partial shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration and what Democrats call the GOP’s extortionist tactics.

Microsoft chairman and founder Bill Gates on Wednesday criticized China for doing too little to protect intellectual property. Microsoft has lost hundreds of millions of dollars in China because of law protections for copyrights and patents, straining its relationship with the emerging economic superpower.

President-elect Obama and Illinois Gov Rod Blagojevich clashed over whether to appoint Valerie Jarrett, a senior Obama adviser, to replace him in the Senate. Gov Blagojevich in a conversation intercepted by federal agents calls Obama a "motherf----r" and dismisses Obama's unwillingness to strike a deal: "F—k him." The complaint refers several times to Blagojevich's effort to win concessions from Obama in exchange for appointing "Senate Candidate 1," who is described as "an adviser to the President-elect" to Obama's vacant seat.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) may follow a model set at the start of the 103rd Congress, when Democrats held a 57-seat Senate majority, to determine how many seats the two major parties get on each Senate Committee.

Former-Secretary of State Colin Powell's endorsement of Sen Barack Obama (D-IL) has put him at odds with his own son, former Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell. Michael Powell served as a policy adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney during former President George H.W.

Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (MD.), the House Democrats’ point man in negotiations on an overhaul of intelligence surveillance law, is keeping his eye on conservative Blue Dog Democrats who might defect on the issue under Republican pressure.